The Court of Appeal gave guidance on the relevant factors to consider in assessing claims for protection against persecution from non-state actors under the Refugee Convention and Article 3 of the ECHR.

Where the actors of persecution feared are themselves state agents consideration must still be given to whether the applicant can avail himself of protection, but this assessment must be made in context. There will be a spectrum of cases between, on the one extreme, those where the only ill-treatment is by non-state actors and, on the other extreme, those where the state itself is wholly complicit in the ill-treatment.